At night, the rising moon peers through the natural volcanic arch, revealing the silhouettes of windows and doorways alluding to a crumbling fortress, guarding a paradise lost. It shares its walls with the rocks, built haphazardly into the Caribbean cliff on the western tail of the island of Bequia, but the rooms are empty, the whole structure eerily lifeless. Like the centrepiece of a mystery movie’s opening scene, the magic of Moonhole is as much a sight to be seen as it is a story to be told…
In the late 1950s, a young-at-heart American couple, Tom and Gladdie Johnston, had retired from the advertising business and decided to chuck it all and move to Bequia, a quiet sandy paradise void of chain hotels, overshadowed by its southern neighbour, Mustique, the preferred island getaway of royalty and rockstars.
They took over a small 9-room inn called the Sunny Caribbee Hotel and became friendly with a local island family who owned the uninhabited western end of Bequia (pronounced “Beck-way”). Eager to discover more of their new island home, they took up the family’s invitation to visit a strange geological arch formation known as the Moonhole. At the time, that end of the island was accessible only by a watery trek along the bottom of the cliffs.
They began to picnic and camp there, and it quickly became the couple’s favourite spot on the island. In the 1960s, they ended up buying the entire 30-acre tract on a whim and started building a house beneath the natural arch of volcanic rock, working with local masons from a nearby village who walked in daily to bring food and supplies.
They took over a small 9-room inn called the Sunny Caribbee Hotel and became friendly with a local island family who owned the uninhabited western end of Bequia (pronounced “Beck-way”). Eager to discover more of their new island home, they took up the family’s invitation to visit a strange geological arch formation known as the Moonhole. At the time, that end of the island was accessible only by a watery trek along the bottom of the cliffs.
They began to picnic and camp there, and it quickly became the couple’s favourite spot on the island. In the 1960s, they ended up buying the entire 30-acre tract on a whim and started building a house beneath the natural arch of volcanic rock, working with local masons from a nearby village who walked in daily to bring food and supplies.
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